[Paia] A Little Fall

The little Gyrocopter juddered and squealed like a great beast stuck by a hunter’s spear. The Gnomish pilot forced the machine to continue in its jagged path across the cold Northrend skies. She forced it to screech round a sharp turn through a narrow mountain pass and immediately felt the vehicle punish her for it.Taking a peek behind her she instantly regretted pushing the vehicle. Just a few more miles, well, perhaps more than a few... but if the weather kept clear she would reach Fizzcrank Airfield and there she would be safe. “Come on... you can do this little copter” she said to no-one in particular.

“This is Pilot Cuddlefork flying with the Explorer’s League; I’m under attack north of the Fizzcrank Airstrip. Sustained serious damage. Engine one is not responding. Repeat sustained serious damage.” She put out on the buzzbox.

If she was going down then at least she was going to make some noise about it.

She turned herself in her seat and leaned out of the gyrocopter flinging a desperate a ball of flames at one of her pursuers; the creature screeched and tumbled out of the sky wreathed in flame. She wondered for a moment whether the monsters wanted to knock her out of the sky just because she was there or if they knew that she was a courier with a relatively important missive. Suddenly everything came to a screeching halt as engine two gave in to its battle damage. She tried in vain to restart it as the flying machine began the process of permanently ending its flying days.

She was going down, but perhaps that didn’t have to spell complete disaster. All she needed to do was keep the flying machine level using her one (admittedly quite beaten up) engine and avoid hitting or landing on any rocks. Another undead monster flew into her view, obviously trying to take her craft out. It needed to burn. Summoning up caustic flames she targeted the creature with the aid of her goggles calculating how best to throw the spell in order to incinerate her attacker. The spell flew off past the windshield, catching her enemy with a direct hit and inducing hideous screeching and fatal spasms as it fell to the ground. It had been a mistake though. A fatal distraction.

Trying to restrain panic as the reddish-grey rocky ground rushed up towards her she desperately made one last attempt to keep her gyrocopter level. Without success she tried to slow its descent. Her mind seized up. A flash of magic. The gyrocopter hit the ground. Hard.